Vessels of various types are known in the art for holding liquids, solutions, powders and numerous other materials. In the medical field, liquid, powder, capsule, and other forms of medication are often stored in vessels typically referred to as vials, which commonly take the form of a small, closed glass or plastic vessel. Vials may also be used in the field for storing biological materials such as blood samples and other bodily fluids and the like. Vials may be configured with screw-on caps, press-on caps, caps penetrable to pipette tips or needles, and other such varieties of lids generally depending upon intended use.
Vials must often be stored or transported during use. Many medications and biological materials must be stored in temperature controlled environments to avoid negative effects on efficacy or the general integrity of the materials. Similarly, vials are often transported from storage to the location at which the medication is to be administered, for example, or from the procurement site of the materials (e.g., blood) to storage or a testing laboratory. In medical settings, such as at a hospital, several vials may be needed for administration to a patient or several patients. Several kinds of medication may be required, or several vials each containing one dose of medication may be necessary during medical treatment.
It is known to utilize vial trays, boxes and other similar structures, sometimes contained within a carrying case, to transport multiple vials. Known structures typically include at least one surface with apertures sized to receive vials therein, and to maintain them in a substantially lid-up vertical position. These devices can be carried on a shoulder strap, placed on a wheeled cart, or carried by simple hand grips. Some carriers include additional vial retention means for retaining the vials within the apertures, or alignment features for use with common laboratory testing equipment, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,132,082 to Aviles et al.
While known vial carrier configurations advantageously allow for the transport or storage of multiple vials simultaneously, they are not helpful in intra-facility transport by way of pneumatic tube systems. Many medical facilities use pneumatic tube systems, typically with cylindrical containers, in order to quickly transport materials between locations in a medical facility, including pharmaceuticals and biological materials. Traditional vial carriers are often much larger than and are incompatible with pneumatic tube sizes. In order to transport vials utilizing such systems, therefore, vials are typically placed directly into pneumatic tube containers, or into protective sleeves designed to fit securely within such containers.
In the former case in which the vials are placed directly into a pneumatic container, damage can occur to the vials as a result of the forces exerted on them as the pneumatic container traverses the tube systems. Manufacturers of vials have designed more robust vials in response, resulting in a significant expense to the users, who alternatively must deal with the increased risk and incidence of vial breakage during transport.
In the latter case, protective sleeves are used during pneumatic transport of vials to protect the vials from damage. An exemplary vial sleeve is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,072,362 to Allen, for example. While this development provided advantageous protection to vials in transport without the need for more robust vials, the sleeves have a disadvantage in that each embodiment must be manufactured to fit a particular vial shape and size configuration. Furthermore, the insertion and removal of the vials from the sleeve encourages contact with the lid portion of the vials, thereby introducing an increased risk of contamination due to unnecessary handling.
It is also known to provide elastic holding films within pneumatic containers for the purposes of suspending articles therein to avoid contact with the interior container surfaces during pneumatic transport. U.S. Pat. No. 6,015,246 to Yamane et al. discloses one such system in an effort to protect articles being transported within pneumatic systems. Such systems have advantages similar to protective sleeves, and potentially may be used with a wider variety of vial sizes. However, the elastic holding films do not make suitable storage or transport systems outside of the context of pneumatic tube transport. For example, the complexities of manufacturing such devices increases as multiple sub-compartments (and multiple elastic films) are required for transporting multiple vials. Furthermore, such devices do not provide for uniform orientation of vials—a disadvantage borne by the goal of such systems to be compatible with multiple types and sizes of articles.
It is therefore an unmet need in the prior art for a vial transport assembly that provides for the protection of a plurality of vials during both storage and transport, and that is useful both within existing pneumatic transport systems and outside of said systems. Further, it is needed for such a system to also be readily able to secure vials of varying types and sizes and to provide access to the vials by users in a manner that does not require excessive contact with vial lids.